14-05-2025
True North tops La Salle in boys volleyball to advance to first state final four
It was only a few years ago that they were nothing but a bunch of raw, 'wet-behind-the-ears' seventh and eighth graders when they all came together.
Early Tuesday evening, those 'youngsters' were all grown up and busy celebrating with their students and family out on the middle of the floor in their home gym.
The True North Classical Academy boys' volleyball team, most of who are now 10th and 11th graders, had just finished off a dominating performance from the very first point, cruising to a 3-0 (25-11, 25-14, 25-22) victory over Immaculata-La Salle in the Region 4-1A final to punch their ticket to the state final four.
A school still in its relative infancy, which will have just its third graduating class in a few weeks, the Titans became only the second program at the school (joining girls soccer) to make it to the state final four.
The Titans (18-11) will have little time to celebrate their accomplishment as the Class 1A state semifinal they qualified for is set for Thursday at 4 p.m. at Polk State College in Winter Haven. They will enter as the No. 2 seed and take on No. 3 Tampa SLAM Academy which will bring a perfect 24-0 record into the match.
'We started this whole thing a few years ago with a whole bunch of seventh and eighth graders and didn't think anything of it at the time,' True North coach Jonathan Losada said. 'We started out with nothing that first year – nobody that even called themselves a volleyball player. And now? Those kids that we thought were going to be just 'okay' volleyball players are out there celebrating on that court right now with their friends and families because they worked hard to become great volleyball players.'
One of those players Losada spoke of was outside hitter Roberto Romero who led the way for the True North with 11 kills and 21 attempts.
'We were all young kids when we got here and have kind of just learned this thing together,' said Romero, who on a team without a single senior is one of just four juniors with the rest being sophomores and freshmen. 'Just a great job by our coaches for developing us, being patient with us and believing that this thing would eventually come together. Since I got here as an eighth grader, my dream was to win a regional championship and get to state and now it's done.'
With Romero leading the way, the Titans came out on fire, surging to a 15-4 lead in the first set before cruising to the easy 25-11 win.
Like True North, La Salle was competing in its first ever regional final and the Royal Lions (15-7) settled down at the start of the second set, jumping out to a 6-3 lead. But True North, with Romero's fellow outside hitter Kayden Rosario (a freshman) leading the way, the Titans then went on a 14-1 run to open up a 17-7 lead and cruised to another easy 25-14 win.
Trailing 2-0, a determined La Salle team hung tough and kept battling. Spurred by Lorenzo Buttice, who led his team with 10 kills, the Royal Lions were set up to take the third set as they led 15-9 midway through.
But Romero, Rosario and middle hitter Octavio Blanco, who finished with six kills turned up the heat and went on a tear, outscoring La Salle 16-7 the rest of the way to close things out before storming the center of the court to start the celebration.
'We came out strong and really beat them down early on,' said Rosario who finished right behind Romero with 10 kills. 'We might've taken our foot off the petal a little bit in that third set and played down to their level but that fact that we were able to get things turned back around in our direction mid-set and come back to win it shows what we're made of. We can't wait to get up there and keep this thing going.'
Now completing his fourth season since taking over the program, Losada said it didn't take him long to know that he might be building something special.
'I think by the time I got to my second year we really started competing,' Losada said. 'We won a district championship but because all state volleyball was in one classification and our region was probably the toughest in the state, it was tough to advance. But now that the state went to three classifications (1A, 2A, 3A), that has allowed us to really prove who we are.'
